Cal Baptist expels transgender student

From the Riverside Press-Enterprise: Domaine Javier, 24, said university officials told her she was expelled for falsely claiming on her application form that she is a female. Javier revealed on MTV's "True Life" that she is biologically male.

Letters the university sent to Javier say she was expelled for "committing or attempting to engage in fraud, or concealing identity," and for presenting false or misleading information in university judicial processes.

Javier, 24, said she has identified herself as female since she was a toddler and correctly clicked the space next to "female" on the online application form.

"I didn't do anything wrong," she said. "They said, 'On your application form you put 'female.' And I was like, 'Yeah, that's how I see myself.'"

And in the category of even more ridiculous, the story reveals that the California law does not cover private universities. I note, however, that California is under the jurisdiction of the Ninth Federal Circuit Court. The Ninth Circuit has ruled that federal laws referring to sex discrimination include transgender people, and I hope that Ms. Javier finds a good lawyer.

The idea that a transgender person commits fraud by stating their current sex, rather than their birth sex, is simply wrong. I have discussed this in the health care context, in my article "An Attorney's Perspective on Fraud Related to Health Care," in the Journal of Controversial Medical Claims. While there are few court opinions directly on point, the idea that my identification as a female is "fraud" is patently ludicrous. If that were true, then gender identity non-discrimination laws could have little effect, because it would be a simple matter to cry "fraud" and say that was the basis of discrimination, rather than the person's gender identity specifically.

It's obvious that Cal Baptist discriminated against Ms. Javier because of her sex, as well as her gender identity, and wants to avoid the effect of the law.

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In fairness, some trans students are highly religious themselves, some come from extremely religious families (and are trying to please their parents in what might be a very precarious balancing act), or received some form of aid or scholarship from this particular school. While I would never advise a trans student to go to a fundamentalist school (much less out themselves on MTV as trans at the same time), neither would I instantly categorize their choice of doing so as a delusion. Let's not do victim-blaming.

Such as:
Penal Code Section 422.56
(c) "Gender" means sex, and includes a person's gender identity
and gender related appearance and behavior whether or not
stereotypically associated with the person's assigned sex at birth.

And all those other little adjustments that it made, such as:

"Existing law also prohibits discrimination based on specified
characteristics by any postsecondary educational institution that
receives, or benefits from, state financial assistance.
This bill would additionally include gender identity and gender
expression among those characteristics."

I think that any school that accepts federal funding, even in the form of student loans, shouldn't be allowed to discriminate along the lines of gender ID and sexual orientation, and a law should specifically spell that out at the federal level.

The fact that this school gets federal and state money in the form of student aid (at least, they probably get other grants too) shows why religious exemptions are unfair. Any law that could have a chance of passing in the next 10 years regarding LGBT anti-discrimination would likely exempt Bible colleges, basically continuing our current subsidization of homo- and transphobia.

I'll start off with what I agree with and save the part that I strongly disagree with for last. No, I don't think Domaine Javier deserves to be charged with fraud. I won't question a lot of the other assertions you make but . . .

I followed your link to: An Attorney’s Perspective on Fraud Related to Health Care by Jillian Weiss | Papers by Jillian Weiss.

There is what seems to be description of SRS characterized as "penectomy"? - FOUR times! Then, a reference to the sixth edition of the standards of care (WPATH). I strongly disagree with much of what WPATH promotes as "sex reassignment". I won't go into every procedure which I strongly believe is cosmetic, not sex changing but associating penectomy with sex reassignment or questioning whether it is necessary in order to identify as a "gender different than that assigned at birth" has many negative connotations. First, penectomy is generally associated with cancer. Men who have penectomies in order to remove their cancer don't have penectomies to change sex or because of a desire to live in another "gender". Such people remain men regardless of whether the penectomy is partial or total. Also, I think there are disturbing implications involving men of transsexual experience, as well and men who are intersex when penectomy is conflated with SRS. Secondly, everything I read about penectomies states "Genital surgical procedures for trans women undergoing sex reassignment surgery do not usually involve the complete removal of the penis" or "Sometimes, but not usually, penis amputation is part of a sex reassignment surgery called vaginoplasty for trans women." from Wikipedia and Wisgeek respectively.

I suppose partial penectomy can still be considered penectomy but you don't say "partial". You say only penectomy which disturbingly portrays vaginoplasty as a simple matter of amputation of the penis. The recent NCTE statement on discrimination characterizes penectomy as "removal of penis". Even colovaginoplasty involves the construction of, in other words - the addition of something which results in much more than the removal of something. It isn't any wonder why many post surgical women find the dismissiveness of their SRS so objectionable and complain loudly when procedures that are only cosmetic or involve simple removal are characterized as equivalent to vaginoplasty. I can't understand why anyone who has had vaginoplasty would feel such characterizations are not objectionable and even offensive. That's their business. It is not for me to question that. I find such characterizations totally false. Such characterizations feed into the mis-understanding of what SRS is all about. I feel such characterizations are completely dismissive. I find such characterizations are extremely offensive.

The implications are very sexist and phallocentric. They feed the arguments of people like Peter Sprigg who actually has a point to make about sex being a lot more than a state of mind which is not necessarily dismissive of the importance of a sense of self, regardless of what Peter Sprigg may think about that particular aspect of a person's being. The fact that he may be a common enemy doesn't change this. It only provides evidence of how dangerous it can be to persist in a line of reasoning that dismisses material realities. These ideas, that a deeply held sense of self characterized as a "gender identity" existing on a psychological plane, alone, originate from the very people who write in the Archives of Sexual Behavior as well as the International Journal of Transgenderism, many of whom form the policies behind the SOC. Where does the thinking originate from? A lot of it comes from here: An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis By Dylan Evans

here is the section on "Lack"(manque) in Evans book on Lacanian neo Freudian Psychoanalysis:

Where does all this lead?
From: An introductory dictionary of Lacanian psychoanalysis By Dylan Evans on Lacan's discussion of the "Law"(loi):

It is the FATHER who imposes this law on the subject in THE OEDIPUS COMPLEX, the paternal agency(or the paternal function) is no more than the name prohibitive and legislative role.

The Oedipus complex represents the regulation of desire by the law.
. . . Desire is essentially the desire to transgress and for there to be transgression it is first necessary for there to be prohibition

Sorry, but Judith Butler "embracing ideas of "queerness" and "the abject other" as vital to the destabilization and subversion of normative constraints." has very patronizing implications. Such assessments are self serving on the part of people who promote such concepts of transsexualism. It is a gross misunderstanding to dismiss the realty of physical sex, which does not exist in a binary no matter what kind of exams a person's mixed sex characteristics might involve.

I do not agree with this individual being expelled, but at the same time, when filling out formal applications, they need to be filled out accurately. Unless this person has legally changed their gender, then they need to be upheld to the same laws as everyone else. We live in a world of identity theft, and incorrect answers on such forms only raise flags. If gender truly does not determine who we are as people, then it shouldn't hurt to fill it out accurately and then continue on with your life.

I've looked at this from a few different directions, and can only conclude that Cal Baptist wants to be sued.

It's an important distinction that they claim to have expelled Javier not because she's trans, but because she was "deceptive" when she filled out her admissions form as female. So as much as they might want to *publicly* portray any court action against them as a battle between LGBT rights and religious freedom, the *actual* court action would pivot on whether trans identities are fraudulent.

Which is why they want the court action. If they lose, they look persecuted, and the donor base rallies behind them. If they win, they win a landmark ruling that legally invalidates trans people.

I'm seeing a lot of this lately: gambit legal action. Usually, the cases are far-reaching and destined to fail, but in the off-chance they succeed, they get something they can use to the max. Might explain why they let out all the stupid during Prop 8, too.

In Canada, we're seeing it with the Whatcott hate speech trial. Although it's characterized as freedom of speech in the media, Whatcott's lawyers argued a legal distinction between Whatcott hating gays and Whatcott hating gay sex and behaviour. If they win it, they've created an easy escape hatch in all LGBT-inclusive human rights legislation.